Does Rory McIlroy still care – now that he has completed golf?

When I got Dover Athletic promoted to the Premier League on Football Manager, my work was done.

I leaned back on my sofa, ate my last wotsit from bag number three, and turned off my laptop.

I was at the top of the mountain. I could walk away from the club with my head high, having taken this minnow of south-east Kent to the highest level of competitive football in England.

But I was also dumbfounded. What do I do next? I can’t start again with another club. I have nothing else to prove. I’ve demonstrated my class, and I’ve cemented my legacy forever.

I didn’t care anymore.

And this is how I imagine Rory McIlroy could be feeling. I can’t know for sure, but I believe he achieved something of equal measure to me at the Masters in April.

I was lucky enough to be standing under the oak tree short of the 18th green of Augusta National to watch McIlroy complete the career grand slam, tapping in for birdie against Justin Rose on the first playoff hole.

He said afterwards: “What will everyone talk about next year?”

It was a good question. Golf’s biggest ‘Will he, Won’t he’ was over. McIlroy had completed golf and became just the sixth player to win all four men’s majors.

Many fans, including myself, thought he would kick on at the PGA Championship staged at Quail Hollow in May, a golf course he has won at four times on the PGA Tour. But his performance was rather a damp squib.

He subsequently missed the cut by a long way at the RBC Canadian Open, another tournament where he has enjoyed success and would have wanted to prepare to the fullest for the US Open at Oakmont.

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Which is why I ask: Does McIlroy care anymore? This is not an accusation, by the way.

After the heartbreak of the 2011 Masters, missing the cut at the 2019 Open in his home nation, the 2022 Open at St Andrews, the 2023 US Open in Los Angeles and losing another US Open battle at Pinehurst in 2024, he has every right to emotionally close the book on a major career that only Gene Sarazen, Ben Hogan, Jack Nicklaus, Gary Player and Tiger Woods can now relate too.

He’ll keep playing in the majors, sure. He’ll want to win more, sure. But when he is in contention next time, and a par putt lips out or he gets a bad lie in the rough at a crucial moment, will he show the same grit?

Could he just think ‘Do I need to keep putting myself through this?’

He wants to play more tennis, he wants to have more fun and he wants to go on trips with his family.

McIlroy has built a house at Wentworth, which will reportedly be ready to live in soon. He recently revealed one reason for not speaking to the media on a particular day at the PGA Championship was that he wanted to see his daughter Poppy before her bedtime.

He has a Green Jacket, a Claret Jug, a US Open Gold Medal and a Wanamaker Trophy. Does he need to keep playing and missing more bedtimes with Poppy? Will his relocation to the UK mean his PGA Tour activity will decrease?

Excitingly, the five-time major champion has entered the DP World India Championship and the Australian Open later this year. It will be a breath of fresh air to watch a top player go on the quest for new experiences in the far-flung corners of the golf globe, or at least less common experiences. McIlroy recently had a trip to New Zealand too, enjoying the courses of that great nation.

Would he have prioritised visits to India and Australia had he not won the Masters?

I highly doubt it.

The Northern Irishman has also taken a backseat from the rigorous behind-the-scenes work involved with the PGA Tour’s talks with the Public Investment Fund of Saudi Arabia that bankrolls LIV Golf.

He accurately described himself as a sacrificial lamb in June 2023 when the PGA Tour-PIF agreement was made public to everyone’s shock. He took on the role of the tour’s public defender, swatting away comments about LIV and going into bat for commissioner Jay Monahan.

With every passing day that the PGA Tour lie in bed with SSG, a US-based consortium that has pumped in billions of dollars of equity for the players, a deal with the PIF seems more and more unlikely.

Like many of us, he can forget that and probably already has.

He has a burning passion for the Ryder Cup, and that could take the front seat. He wants to win an away Cup in America, if not this year, then another.

For those who thought his Masters win would propel him past double-digits in majors among the immortal figures of the game, you might be extremely disappointed.

McIlroy isn’t checking out of golf, he’ll never do that. But he might just check out of the majors. Starting this week at Oakmont. Let’s see what happens.

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